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I was baking cookies last week using granulated sugar (white and brown) and they were great.

The recipe says to put all 3 sugars into the molten butter and to stir for a while. Yesterday I thought it would be easier to grind the sugars into powdered sugar and add it that way.

The cookies this time are drier and taste less like vanilla than before. Could that have something to do with the powdered sugar?

I hope the question is on point enough. Sorry for the metric units.

250 g     flour
2 g       baking powder
0,33 tsp. salt
170 g     butter, melted
110 g     brown sugar
50 g      white sugar
1 pck.    vanilla sugar
1 pck.    vanilla pudding powder
1         egg
1         egg yolk
200 g     chocolate chips
Minix
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    Don't worry about metric units - this is an *international* site! Welcome! – Stephie Sep 06 '15 at 12:30
  • Is it possible that you simply didn't spend enough time mixing the dull, because your sugar dissolved quicker? Spending enough time on preparing the dull is crucial in many recipes, and even if the thingy already looks mixed, I usually continue mixing for a good while, just carefully enough so that the eggs don't get beaten in case of liquid stuff. (I hope I use the correct vocabulary here.) – yo' Sep 07 '15 at 06:29
  • @yo' Could you give me a pointer to what a dull is, all I find is about knives :) – Minix Sep 07 '15 at 09:04
  • @Minix Damn, a wrong word :D Sorry for that, I meant _dough_. – yo' Sep 07 '15 at 09:13
  • @yo' Thoguht so, but you used it twice, so I was unsure. How do I know when it is enough, then? When the consistency doesn't change for a while? – Minix Sep 07 '15 at 09:16
  • @Minix Yep, somehow my experience is that "when the behaviour stops changing". For cookies I suppose you can squeeze the dough in your hands directly, and this way you feel very well that all the ingredients mixed really well. I usually continue for a while after this, just to be sure. As I say, it's a bit tougher with liquid stuff based on milk and/or eggs, you have to careful there. But for solid stuff, mixing longer does no harm. Still, I'm not sure it'll help with your specific problem. – yo' Sep 07 '15 at 09:20
  • Powdered sugar often contains cornstarch as an anti-clumping agent. Cornstarch sucks up liquid. This link claims 3% cornstarch by weight: https://bakerpedia.com/ingredients/powdered-sugar/ I expect the number varies. When I powder sugar in my bladed coffee grinder there is no corn starch involved. – Wayfaring Stranger Oct 28 '19 at 23:24

1 Answers1

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This answer touches on the problem:

Superfine sugar will dissolve too quickly and won't allow enough air to be incorporated.

Powdered or superfine sugar will still give you the same sweetness property as the granulated sugar. However, the step of creaming butter and (granulated) sugar is not just for mixing. It also incorporates some air into the fat; a well-creamed mixture will look "fluffy" and paler in color.

In creaming the butter and sugar together, you are using the sugar to aerate the butter and fill it with bubbles that can capture the gasses released by your leavener. The more fine bubbles you have in your network, the lighter in texture your cakes will be and the finer the crumb. This is true for your muffins as well, while it makes your cookies light and crisp instead of hard and dense. (King Arthur Flour blog)

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